People in and about Northampton began seeing stars in August 2008, as hundreds of them lined up for a casting call for extras in the movie. Some baby boomers got their old tie-dyed shirts out of mothballs when they heard that filmmakers were looking for people to play “older hippies.”

Then there was the magical week when Mel and company shot scene after scene at Tully

GK FilmsIn this screen capture from the "Edge of Darkness" trailer, protesters can be seen on the streets of Northampton.O’Reilly’s Pub and the Hampshire County courthouse. Police had to stop traffic for a repeatedly filmed shot in which Gibson, playing Boston police detective Thomas Craven, drives into Northampton in his quest to find out who killed his daughter. In the scene, Craven sees a group of people protesting Northmoor, the shadowy weapons manufacturer where his daughter worked. Hence the older hippies.

Guess what? That scene got cut, too. Bummer.

City Councilor Marianne LaBarge was one of several dozen extras who spent two days working their abs at the Northampton Athletic Club for a scene in which Gibson’s character searches his daughter’s locker. The producers let it be known they were looking for women who wouldn’t mind appearing in only a towel. LaBarge was one of four women in the shower scene.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” LaBarge said this week when told that the entire athletic club section, including the shower scene, is missing from the movie.

“No way!” LaBarge lamented. “We spent two days on that. All I know is I worked my butt off exercising.”

For the record, LaBarge would have been the one in the blue top.

Tully McColgan, who owns Tully O’Reilly’s on Pleasant Street, used a saltier exclamation when he learned that they cut the scene in which Gibson’s character sees something upsetting on the bar’s television while eating a turkey club sandwich.

“They told me it was a pivotal scene,” he said. “Apparently, it wasn’t that pivotal.”

Publicist Minda Gowen said it is difficult to know why some scenes made the movie and others didn’t.

“It could be that maybe the editor said, ‘I don’t think this is working so much here,’” she said.

“Edge of Darkness” tells the story of Craven’s relentless hunt for the people behind the death of his daughter, who is gunned down in the doorway of his Boston home early in the movie. Without giving the rest of the plot away, it’s fair to say that everyone gets shot who needs shooting, and then some.

Craven’s arrival in Northampton shows him driving down Route 9 past Pop’s liquor store and Fitzwilly’s restaurant with a bunch of extras walking nonchalantly along the sidewalks. His first stop is the 363 Union St. apartment where his daughter’s boyfriend lives. That address doesn’t actually exist in Northampton. When he gets there, it looks suspiciously like Charlestown.

Northmoor, Craven’s next stop, sits atop Mount Sugarloaf. The evil CEO there has a panoramic view of the Connecticut River valley in autumn through the floor-to-ceiling windows of his office. Film crews spent days putting up the set and the state closed Sugarloaf, a state park, during filming.

One Northampton scene that did make the movie shows Craven and a lawyer hired by his daughter leaving the courthouse. Gibson, somewhat of a cut-up, messed up several shots by grabbing actor Peter Herman as they descended the courthouse steps, much to the delight of onlookers.

Northwestern assistant district attorney Susan Loehn was among the extras in the courthouse scene. She was dismayed when informed she was nowhere in sight.

“Oh no,” Loehn said. “I went by Mel and figured I had a good shot. There goes my Hollywood career.”

In the movie, the district attorney’s office is supposed to investigate the death of the boyfriend, one of the movie’s many casualties. Loehn had no comment on that investigation.

There are a few other little touches that pay homage to the area, or at least to some mythical Pioneer Valley. A bottle of lethal milk is labeled “Hadley Falls Dairy,” though there is no Hadley Falls. Craven, at one point, tells someone his daughter was attracted to Northampton because it reminded her of Paris in the ’20s, a tribute, perhaps, to the ability of Northamptonites to sit at outdoor cafes.

Northampton doesn’t get much respect until the closing credits. The filmmakers thank the city of Northampton, along with the city of Boston and even the town of Merrimac, wherever that is.

Ah, but there is one last shred of hope for the local hopefuls. Gowen said the movie, when it comes out on DVD, could be an unedited version that includes deleted shots. Perhaps even a steamy shower scene.